Supreme Court Grants Cert. to Decide Whether SEC ALJs Need to Be Appointed Under the Appointments Clause; SG Changes Position and Now Supports Required Appointment

We welcome frequent guest blogger, Carl Smith, who blogs today on a frequently discussed topic – the Appointments Clause and its application to employees of the IRS office of Appeals. Keith

In six prior posts since September 2015 (here, here, here, here, here, and here), I have blogged about the storm at the SEC over whether its ALJs need to be appointed under the Appointments Clause or are mere “employees”, who do not need to be appointed. This issue could spill over into whether the ALJs that the Treasury uses to try Circular 230 sanctions matters need to be, and are properly, appointed. I suspect that they may not be.

I noted that in the courts of appeals, the government took the position that the SEC ALJs were mere employees, so there was no problem in the fact that SEC ALJs had been issuing recommended rulings on administrative sanctions matters without having first been appointed. Two Circuits had split on this question: The Tenth Circuit held that SEC ALJs need to be appointed; Bandimere v. SEC, 844 F.3d 1168 (10th Cir. 2016); while the D.C. Circuit held that they did not. Raymond J. Lucia Cos., Inc. v. SEC, 832 F.3d 277 (D.C. Cir. 2016). I correctly predicted that the Supreme Court would grant cert. to resolve this issue. In fact, the Court did so in Lucia on January 12, 2018. But, I never predicted that in the Solicitor General’s response to the cert. petition in Lucia he would change position 180 degrees and now argue that SEC ALJs have to be appointed. Presumably since the government was no longer seeking to reverse the ruling in Bandimere, the Court did not grant the government’s cert. petition in Bandimere.

This means that both of the parties to the Lucia case currently argue for its reversal. Although it has not done so yet, I suspect the Court will appoint an amicus to argue in favor of the ruling below, since the parties won’t. It is expected that Lucia will be heard and decided by the Court before its current Term ends on June 30.

Central to the Lucia case will be what the Court meant in Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U.S. 868 (1991), when it held that Tax Court Special Trial Judges (STJs) were inferior officers of the United States who need to be appointed.

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In Freytag, the Supreme Court held that the Appointments Clause did not prohibit the Tax Court’s Chief Judge from appointing STJs because the Tax Court was one of the “Courts of Law” mentioned in the Clause and because the Chief Judge could act for the Tax Court. In reaching these rulings, the Supreme Court made a subsidiary holding that STJs are not employees of the government, but inferior officers who need to be appointed. To support its holding that STJs are officers, the Supreme Court cited the many judicial duties that STJs perform. At the end of this section of the opinion, the Supreme Court also observed that STJs can enter final decisions in some cases under § 7443A(c). It is this finality observation that has puzzled and split the lower courts.

In Landry v. FDIC, 204 F.3d 1125 (D.C. Cir. 2000), a majority of a 3-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s observation in Freytag that STJs can rule with finality in some cases meant that being able to make a final ruling was a but for requirement of officer status. Since FDIC ALJs could not enter final rulings, but simply made recommended rulings to the whole FDIC, the majority held that the ALJs were mere employees who did not need to be appointed. The third judge on the panel argued instead that, in Freytag, the Supreme Court had already decided that STJs were officers before it made the observation about STJs being in some cases allowed to enter final orders, so finality was not a but for requirement of an officer.

Like FDIC ALJs, SEC ALJs cannot make final rulings – at least where defendants appeal their proposed ruling to the whole SEC. In Bandimere, the Tenth Circuit disagreed with the Landry majority that being able to issue final rulings was a but for requirement of officer status. The Tenth Circuit held that the SEC ALJs performed nearly all the duties that STJs did, so were also officers who needed to be appointed.

In Lucia, citing Landry, the D.C. Circuit held that SEC ALJs need not be appointed because they did not have final ruling authority. After Bandimere was issued, Lucia moved for reconsideration of the ruling in his case by the full D.C. Circuit. He asked the D.C. Circuit to consider whether it should overrule Landry and agree with the Tenth Circuit in Bandimere. An en banc rehearing was granted. However, the en banc D.C. Circuit split evenly on the question, which left the original holding in Lucia intact. Lucia then sought cert.

In response to Lucia’s cert. petition, the new SG under President Trump surprisingly changed the government’s position – agreeing with the Tenth Circuit that the ability to issue final rulings was not a but for requirement of officer status. The SG felt that the SEC ALJs were sufficiently like Tax Court STJs to have to be appointed. Thus, the SG also sought reversal of the D.C. Circuit. The SG asked the Court to grant cert. in Lucia, even though the parties were no longer in disagreement. (Appointments Clause issues are not jurisdictional, so the courts can accept the parties’ waiver of Appointments Clause arguments.) The SG thinks there is a need for Supreme Court guidance in this area – including issues not discussed below as to removal powers for ALJs, which may now be problematic. A number of Court watchers thought that the issue of appointment of SEC ALJs was now moot and that cert. might not now be granted. However, they were wrong.

But, in granting cert. in Lucia, the Supreme Court did not ask the parties to brief any additional questions – e.g., involving removal powers.

Possible Effect on Appeals Office Personnel Issuing CDP Rulings

In addition to Lucia’s possible impact on ALJs used by Treasury to hold Circular 230 sanctions hearings, the opinion may have an impact, as well, on an issue that I raised over a decade ago. In a CDP case that I had in the Tax Court, I moved to remand the case to have the CDP hearing redone by a Settlement Officer and Appeals Team Manager who were both appointed consistently with the Appointments Clause. I noted that no Appeals personnel were then appointed. But, citing Freytag, I argued that the duties of Appeals personnel in conducting statutorily-mandated CDP hearings were so similar to the duties of an STJ that such Appeals personnel were also officers for purposes of the Appointments Clause.

In Tucker v. Commissioner, 135 T.C. 114 (2010), the Tax Court rejected my argument for several reasons. For one thing, the court felt that the positions in Appeals were not “established by law” for purposes of the Clause. But, also, the Tax Court held that Appeals personnel in CDP did not make final rulings, and, citing Landry, the Tax Court held that the ability to make a final ruling was a but for requirement of officer status per Freytag.

I appealed Tucker to the D.C. Circuit. That court, at 676 F.3d 1129 (D.C. Cir. 2012), affirmed the Tax Court, but on different reasoning. The D.C. Circuit was troubled by the idea that Congress might be able to get around the Appointment Clause by assigning duties that had to be performed by a constitutional officer to preexisting employees in the bureaucracy. Therefore, the D.C. Circuit bypassed issuing any ruling on whether or not the position of CDP hearing person was “established by law”. The D.C. Circuit next held that collection issues were of too minor importance to require an officer. As to underlying tax liability rulings that could be made in CDP under section 6330(c)(2)(B), Freytag clearly would treat those rulings as ones for which an officer was required. Disagreeing with the Tax Court, the D.C. Circuit held that Appeals Office personnel issuing underlying liability rulings issued rulings with “effective finality”. However, the D.C. Circuit held that the ability to exercise discretion in a tax liability ruling was a but for requirement of officer status – one that was not met by Appeals personnel who ruled under the thumb of IRS Counsel attorneys. It was this lack of discretion that undermined the idea that Appeals personnel in CDP were officers needing to be appointed.

I thought that the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that Appeals exercised little discretion in making CDP underlying liability rulings was not factually supported, and I sought cert. But, cert. was denied.

I had not expected to again litigate the Tucker issue, but Florida attorney Joe DiRuzzo has decided that he wants to relitigate the issue in the Tax Court and in courts of appeals – hoping to create a Circuit split. Before the Supreme Court granted cert. in Lucia, Joe had made motions to remand in (at the moment) four different pending Tax Court CDP cases, arguing that the hearings should be redone by appointed Appeals personnel. The cases are: Thompson, Docket No. 7038-15L (appealable to the Ninth Circuit); Elmes, Docket No. 24872-14L (appealable to the Eleventh Circuitt); Fonticiella, Docket No. 23776-15L (appealable to the Eighth Circuit); and Crim, Docket No. 16574-17L (appealable to the D.C. Circuit). If the Supreme Court agrees with Lucia and the SG that issuing final rulings is not a but for requirement for officer status, then the Tax Court will have to at least revise its rationale for its holding that CDP hearing personnel need not be appointed. Perhaps, after reading the Supreme Court’s Lucia opinion, the Tax Court may also have to rule that CDP hearing personnel need to be appointed. In its lengthy response to the motion to remand (filed on January 5, 2018 in the Thompson case – i.e., a week before the Supreme Court granted cert. in Lucia), the IRS discusses the possible relevance of Lucia and the SG’s change in position, but argues that Landry, Lucia, and both Tucker opinions are, at least at the moment, still good law.

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Apparently, yesterday (after I drafted this post), the Court entered an order in the Lucia case inviting Anton Metlitsky to participate in the case as amicus, arguing in favor of the ruling below. Metlitsky clerked for Judge Garland on the D.C. Cir. and Chief Justice Roberts. He practices appellate litigation currently at O’Melveny in New York.

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Leslie Book

Keith Fogg

T. Keith Fogg is a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he started a tax clinic in 2015. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, he began his academic career at Villanova Law School in 2007 after working for over 30 years with the Office of Chief Counsel, IRS. Read More…

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